What you need to know about Hua Hin

The seaside town of Hua Hin, meaning “Stone Head”, was named after the rocks at the north end of the powdery sand beach. It is in the Gulf of Thailand, in the southern Thai province of Prachuap Khiri Khan. Once a quiet fishing village, it grew into a fashionable escape for residents of Bangkok after the 1920s, when the Thai royal family built summer palaces here. In the 1980s, luxury hotels started moving in and foreign tourists began arriving in numbers. Today, all the international hotel chains have properties in Hua Hin, and a growing number of wealthy expats retire to the condominiums that dot the town. Middle-class and high-society Thais from Bangkok swoop in on weekends, making parts of the city look a lot like upper Sukhumvit. Hua Hin is also well known for having some of the finest golf courses in Thailand.